Advertising critic H.W. Hepner said the following about the value of 6 seconds when it comes to print ads.

"You need to know the public viewing a poster either can't read it, or, at least, won't. You need to convey the entire story within approximately 6 seconds."

Partnering with KT&G, Miss Yoon jumped into this 6-second war.

Seize victory in a half-second war amid visual chaos!

Cigarette ads come down not to 6 seconds, but 0.5 seconds. The reason for this is the medium.

Cigarettes are a representative product for which advertising is restricted. Cigarettes cannot be advertised through TV or online media, and with the exception of price announcements and some restricted magazine articles, cigarette advertisements are restricted to the small space within retail establishments.

Convenience stores, which are the primary retail outlet for cigarettes, are pure visual chaos inside. Moreover, customers coming to buy cigarettes have a distinct purpose in their short-lived visits. Countless products and ads crowd the available space to attract the gaze of customers. Cigarette ads are positioned nearby the counter, the most heated battleground.

How can you capture the customer's gaze with a cigarette ad inside a convenience store, a space where even a 0.5 second glance is at a premium?

KT&G's Bohem Cigar team came to Miss Yoon to seek the answer.

Bohem Cigar Mini : A unique advertising strategy to make known a unique product

Bohem Cigar, known for its Cuban tobacco content, is a young and unique brand from KT&G, a large cigarette maker. The brand is appealing to customers with an exotic and stylish image. Also, the brand was the first in the country to adopt cigarettes flavored with the Cuban cocktail 'mojito,' a flavor that took 2012 by storm.

Bohem cigar mini is an ultra-small cigarette wrapped with cigar wrappers and including cigar leaf. The product was developed for consumption by sensible younger consumers. However, ultra-slim cigarettes are usually consumed more by middle-aged men. There is a definite prejudice against these 'Dad' cigarettes. The Bohem team wanted to appeal to younger generations with a unique ad becoming of their unique product. At the same time, they wanted the ads to embody the unique Cuban identity of Bohem Cigar, while conveying the flavor, taste, and aroma of the cigar.

Our thoughts upon receiving the RFP were, in a nutshell, 'Wow.' There were so many objectives : An ad that was becoming of Bohem Cigar, an ad with Cuban culture melted in, an ad that conveys the ultra-slim characteristics of the product, while capturing the customer's gaze, and an at that appeals to younger consumers. Miss Yoon was getting lost amongst the myriad goals.

Where we found ourselves at the end of our wandering was exactly where we had begun.

Powerful visual effect that consumers can recognize.An intuitive story that consumers can understand.

In a medium where one has to capture the customer's half-second glance, ads that do not capture attention, and ads that cannot be understood as soon as they are seen are meaningless. When we came to this realization, choosing the viable candidates from among the many ideas that we had devised was an easy task. Proposals that made us go 'What?' went straight down the trash chute. We opted for proposals that cued instant emotional responses. Then, we pondered whether the candidates conveyed intuitive messages regarding the product's characteristics. We took the Miss Yoon approach to this hard problem - a solution that is as simple as possible and focused on the core of the problem - and we soon had the answer.

We married a characteristically Cuban mural with the three-stage speech balloons used by cartoonist Seong Mo Kim in his StarCraft cartoon. This was a powerful tease on the key USP of Bohem Cigar Mini, namely 'flavor, taste, aroma.' We used the expressions depicting taste employed in the popular wine-themed manga series 'Les Gouttes de Dieu (God's Water Droplets)' and the colloquial expression 'real (pronounced as in Real Madrid; means 'really')' in our 'real mini' proposal to convey an intuitive message regarding the product's most stand-out characteristic. The use of materials that were popular among the younger generals as the motif for our ideas was in keeping with our objective of appealing to younger consumers. The vivid colors and vintage textures that were never before attempted were loaned from Cuban culture.

As a result, the 'Real mini flavor, taste and aroma' advertisement was able to meet the key criteria of 'appealing the Cuban flavor, taste, and aroma embodied by the mini to younger consumers through powerful visuals' for the Bohem Cigar Mini ad campaign.

The work on the Bohem Cigar Mini advertising campaign was a satisfying experience that all of our team, including Whinny, were pleased with. The KT&G Bohem Cigar team, who instantly took a liking to our proposal, allowed the development of the proposal to proceed smoothly. In the end, it was decided that the 'flavor, taste and aroma' and 'real mini' proposals would be developed side-by-side. With the enthusiastic first-week consumer response to the newly launched Bohem Cigar Mini in January 2013, the story of the Bohem Cigar Mini advertising campaign was wrapped up with a happy ending.

Clear guidelines and an open mind : Unprecedented ad recognition, achieved through a respectful and considerate partnership

A communications strategy differentiated from existing Bohem Cigar advertisements was attempted for Bohem Cigar Mini, in an effort to expand brand coverage through the creation of a new product category. While the Bohem Cigar Mini advertisements, with their new T&M, succeeded in exceeding the consumer ad recognition and sales targets, nobody took a bigger risk than the KT&F Bohem Cigar team in order to realize such changes.

Partnering with a good client is the advertiser's dream. Thanks to the Bohem Cigar team, which provided us with clear and detailed guidelines, as well as words of advice rooted in unconventional sensibilities not afraid to break the rules, Miss Yoon was able to live up to the support we received and strive toward making even better advertisements. We would like to extend our most sincere thanks to Team Manager Min Seok Kwon, Section Chief Moon Soo Yoon, and Assistant Manager Yoo Il Kang of the KT&G Bohem Cigar Team.

P.S Somewhere between art and science : What makes a good ad?

We joke that advertisers are the only ones that actually watch advertisements. That is to say, it is only us advertisers who watch advertisements carefully and savor the deep meaning they embody. Consumers have no responsibility to make efforts to watch and understand advertisements. It is wholly up to advertisers to make communication with consumers a reality.

The ad for Snickers Mini, which was awarded at Cannes, and Miss Yoon's Bohem Cigar Mini ad, embody the same message. 'Small, but every bit as good.' If the two advertisements were graded from an advertising science perspective, the Snickers might get an A, while Miss Yoon's might get an F.

However, if you were to ask the public what each of the two ads were trying to say, they would have an easier time filling in the space for Miss Yoon than they would for the Snickers ad.

Our brand of creativity is not about filling advertisements with pretentious words and illustrations. Our ads are about convincing consumers that our clients' products are worth buying. We are about 'ads that sell.'

This is Miss Yoon's philosophy. More consumer-friendly advertisements, made by consumers, for consumers. Come and meet Miss Yoon. We ponder issues at the eye level of the consumer. Come and join us in telling not the stories you would like to tell, but the stories consumers want to hear. Come and knock on our door.